Website content

sax11

If content to a website (page layout, formatting, content, images, wording, links) etc is written for a company and is used as their site who legally owns this content. The company who's site it is or the person who did the work?

InsideInsurance

Depends on what the contract says and which law governs the contract

In the UK, copyright remains with the creator unless explicitly transferred to the company. In the US copyright automatically transfers to the company upon payment.

Oblivion

Well, if I employ a plumber to configure and install a piece of pipework for me and I pay the asking price it becomes my property.
I would think the same applies to web design ... if the company have paid for it, even indirectly by paying salary to an employee of the company, the rights and ownership belong to the employing company unless a contract has been drawn up expressly stating the contrary.

sax11

I see both your points but it's extremely vague with regards to the ownership. I don't think there is anything in the contract so technically it would remain the property of the author

Thanks for your input

InsideInsurance

Its a bit vague because its an intangible thing.

Generally if the contract says nothing about copyright or ownership then the author will retain the copyright however the courts will normally rule that the company has an indefinite license to use it. Probably not reassignable but thats stretching my knowledge

So up to you to define who "owns" it. The company could use it but the author could also reuse it elsewhere unless the contract specifies otherwise.

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-ownership/c-commissioned.htm

InsideInsurance

Oblivion wrote: »

Well, if I employ a plumber to configure and install a piece of pipework for me and I pay the asking price it becomes my property.
I would think the same applies to web design ... if the company have paid for it, even indirectly by paying salary to an employee of the company, the rights and ownership belong to the employing company unless a contract has been drawn up expressly stating the contrary.

The key difference is that the plumber is using a physical thing that (a) can only be used in one property at a time and (b) he doesnt "own" the design of it

It would be physically impossible for him to put that same piece of pipe into 10 houses but a web designer can use the same design on 100s of websites.

Likewise, you as the owner of this new pipe couldnt sell it to 100s of other people where as a company could resell its website design or copy to as many others as it wanted to.

The concept of "ownership" is therefore more complex when you get into intangible objects. The business would "own" their site as in, if the creator didnt say otherwise, they can use it as long as they want and potentially sell it as a business to another.

They however dont own the copyright to it and so cannot resell it as a design to lots of companies however the creator does and can.

Any company worth its salt will deal with the IP aspect in the contract as they may well not want others to be able to use their site design but will have to pay a premium to have exclusive rights or to obtain the copyright